Slavery: Paternalistic Domination / Writing Workshop 2

1. Slavery: Paternalistic Domination / Writing Workshop 2 ETHN 100 Week 6 Session 2

2. Last Time • Explored the concept of social structure by listening to a brief lecture on some its key dimensions and analyzing a clip from the video, “A House Divided.” • Reflect on WA1and discuss elements of WA2

3. Today • Brief Lecture on African Americans and slavery • Developing your thesis • What you’ll need: (1) Sample theses (2) Key Terms from Part 2 of Week 6 Online Session

4. African Americans • No other group entered the US as involuntary immigrants • No other group was victimized by two centuries of slavery. • During the twentieth century, the study of race and ethnicity in the US focused primarily on the relationship between Blacks and Whites. • The American racial-ethnic system, it has been argued, was essentially a binary system, in which people were classified as either black or white. • Other groups existed in too small numbers. • Today’s diversity has required more complex and broader theorizing about race and ethnicity in society.

5. The Development of the Black Minority • As with any collective experience, the African American experience is subject to a variety of interpretations. • Prevalent themes in the social sciences, humanities, and interdisciplinary theory and research has often focused on tensions between White and Black Americans in three historical eras: • Slavery, the Jim Crow period, and the modern era.

6. Slavery: Paternalistic Domination • African Americans first entered American society in Virginia in 1610. Their legal status was undetermined for at least forty years. • In 1660, their status was not much different from others, including some whites. Forms of bondage had been prevalent in all the colonies almost from the founding of the society. • Voluntary servitude and indentured servitude (bound by contract) was prevalent. • Though no specific date marks the establishment of chattel slavery, slave codes and statutes evolved piecemeal. By the 1660s, laws had been enacted in the southern region defining Blacks as slaves rather than as indentured servants.

7. The Choice of Blacks • Other groups seemingly could have served as slaves. • The Irish were treated particularly severely. • Attempts were made to enslave Native Americans. • Why Blacks? • Labor, Ethnocentrism, and Differential Power Relations

8. (1) Labor • Need for labor in the mid-seventeenth century led to more humane conditions for servants to encourage greater immigration from Europe. (Historian Oscar Handlin) • The relationship between master and servant gradually evolved into a contractual one. • Blacks did not benefit from these changes. They were not placed under this legislation • The number of voluntary immigrants from Europe increased.

9. (2) White Ethnocentrism • The physical and cultural traits, or “markers of difference,” of Africans was more distinct and obvious compared to other groups. • English settlers interpreted these cultural differences as “heathenism,” or savage and bestial, and sexually wanton. This served as a vital rationale for enslavement. • Differences between religions were especially significant to this justification (Historian Winthrop Jordan). • European servants who were considered Christian could not be dealt with as nonhuman. • The negative images of blacks held by whites can be traced to the first contacts between the English and Africans in the sixteenth century

10. (3) Power Relations • Comparing African Americans to Native Americans gives some suggestions as to why Blacks were selected as slaves. • Why not Native Americans? • Not accustomed to settled agriculture and therefore not suited to plantation labor. • Their familiarity with the terrain made it difficult to contain them. They could escape easily. • Most significantly, Native Americans could offer greater political resistance because—unlike African Americans—they were on familiar soil, organized into nations, and could survive outside of the colonial system. • The lack of a viable community from which they could muster counterforce to resist slavery.

11. American Slavery • The American form was unique and had no precedent in seventeenth-century England. • Slavery of Africans in Spain and Portugal occurred beginning in the early fifteenth century and was imported to the western hemisphere (Brazil and other colonies) • The status of slaves in these societies differed from their American counterparts. • Slaves in these societies maintained certain property and family rights and were often freed. In the American form, the slave was essentially an object not to be afforded common human privileges.

12. American Slavery (cont’d) • Some term the emergence of American slavery as a consequence of “economic rationality” (Political Scientist, Martin Marger). • Prompted above all by cheap labor in underpopulated colonies. • Southern agriculture required slaves because the men who used their labor “…sought greater returns than they could obtain from their own labor alone.” (Historian Kenneth Stampp) • Though at one time slavery occurred in all areas of the colonies and states, the Northeast region abandoned slavery for moral and political reasons. The plantation agriculture was the foundation of the regional economy in the South. Slavery, therefore, was central to maintaining the elite class’s status.

13. Writing Workshop 2b Rhetorical Contexts Claims and Evidence Thesis Statements

14. Undergraduate Research Writing Programs • Many universities fail to present students the various rhetorical contexts of academic writing. • Programs are usually comprised of LD courses that focus on basic mechanics and UD courses (like ETHN 100) that focus on quantity over quality. • Most students graduate only knowing the research writing conventions of their major field.

15. Rhetorical Contexts • Rhetoric – Refers to informing, persuading, or motivating an audience. • Audience – For whom are you writing • Role – Who are you in relation to your audience • Purpose – Why you are writing

16. Roles for Research Writers • Synthesizer of Current Best Thinking on a Problem • Problem-Solving Detective or Critical Analyst • Original Field or Laboratory Researcher • Reviewer of a Controversy • Analyzer and Evaluator of a Controversy • Advocate in a Controversy • Analytical Thinker Positioned in a Critical Conversation

17. Writing Assignment 2 • Develop a thesis that explores the relationship between two or more crosscutting themes from our course (i.e. labor and movement, representation and discrimination, intra-ethnic groups and community, etc.) and their significance to the collective experience of Native Americans. Defend your thesis by discussing key events, figures, ideas, and developments presented in course lectures, videos, and texts.

18. Your Role for WA2 • Analytical Thinker Positioned in a Critical Conversation • Role: Writers do their own analytical thinking about a problem (ethnic conflict and struggle) but must relate their views to others who have addressed the same or similar issue. Their focus is on synthesizing and conversing with secondary sources.

19. Claims Evidence

21. Sample Thesis - Simple • Example – Evolving labor conditions led to conflict among Native Americans. (Intra-ethnic Dynamics and Labor)

22. Claims Evidence

24. Sample Thesis - Elaborated • Evolving labor conditions due to European American hunger for resources developed cultural conflict within Native American communities.

25. Evaluation of WA2 • In WA1, I evaluated Style and Mechanics. • In WA2, we add Ideas. An “A” paper demonstrates the following: Excels in responding to the assignment. Interesting, demonstrates sophistication of thought. Central idea/thesis is clearly communicated, worth developing; limited enough to be manageable. Paper recognizes some complexity of its thesis: may acknowledge its contradictions, qualifications, or limits and follow out their logical implications. Understand and critically evaluates its sources; appropriately limits and defines terms.

26. Next Time • Reflexive Commentary – Yang, Ch. 7-9 • Reading Notes – Statement by Alabama Clergymen / A Letter from Birmingham Jail • Week 7 Online Session – 2 Parts (Will be posted by Thursday evening): (1) Finish watching “A House Divided” (2) Selecting Key Terms from Takaki, Ch. 4 and 5